UNH football: Getting his kicks

Saturday

Nov 28, 2009 at 3:15 AM

By Al Pike

DURHAM — Sean McDonnell admits he panicked.

With the field-goal unit about to attempt a 52-yarder and the play clock winding down, the University of New Hampshire football coach called a timeout to avoid a delay-of-game penalty. Such an infraction would have taken the Wildcats out of field-goal range in a crucial game. It trailed Maine, 24-17, early in the fourth quarter last Saturday at Cowell Stadium.

So with the ball in the air and the CAA North title on the line, an official blew his whistle, signaling the timeout and negating a long field goal by Tom Manning that would have pulled UNH within four points.

"I was ready to kick with three seconds left," Manning said. "We got the kick off with about a second and a half left. When it was in the air I heard the whistle blow and I'm like, 'what happened?' I made it and I heard the announcer go, 'timeout New Hampshire.' You could hear the crowd kind of gasp."

McDonnell, who was kidded afterward about trying to ice his own kicker, apologized to his senior placekicker.

"I looked right at him and I said, 'you've got to bail me out,'" McDonnell said. "He said 'don't worry about it.' He looked at me and smiled, and went out and hit the next one."

While the first one just sneaked inside the left upright, the second was more true, although they don't award style points for field goals as long as they split the uprights.

"The first kick I didn't get a good leg on it," Manning said, "and I just made it. I was able to go through my head what I did wrong on the first kick and straightened it out on the second kick. I hit it a lot better the second time."

It was Manning's school-record 18th field goal of the season and turned out to be the Wildcats' margin of victory in a 27-24, NCAA playoff-clinching victory over the Black Bears.

The 52-yard boot capped a stellar regular season for Manning, who kicked a program-long 54 yarder in a 18-10 win over Hofstra earlier in the year. That record stood for 32 years.

He also made 10 consecutive field goals during one stretch to set another mark that was 23 years old, and was named to the all-CAA first team.

Not bad for a guy who lost his job midway through the 2008 season and was still struggling with confidence and consistency entering the 2009 campaign.

"There were a couple times in fall camp he was struggling and I was on him pretty good," said McDonnell, who coaches the special teams. "We sat down and we talked and I told him he's got to take care of the things he can control. Don't worry about the snap, don't worry about the hold, don't worry about the protection."

Those were the least of Manning's problems after injuring his knee his last season and ultimately losing his job to Tom Bishop, who was also the team's punter. Bishop made 11 of 14 field-goal attempts and went 37 for 38 on extra points in 2008.

"It was an up-and-down season," Manning said. "I just started kicking poorly and Tommy Bishop ended up getting the job, which was OK. He deserved it."

"Tommy Bishop takes it and runs with it," McDonnell said, "and Tommy Manning had to watch that. The bench is a great teacher."

In addition to rehabbing back and knee injuries during the offseason, Manning also altered his technique with the help of a kicking coach, who took away his jab step and made his swing more compact.

"I never had any sort of professional training until I came here to college," said Manning, who lives in Rome, N.Y. "In high school I was just a kid with a strong leg kicking off a tee. I had no idea how to kick off the ground."

There was a learning curve. He won the job toward the end of his redshirt freshman year, hitting 6 of 9 field-goal attempts.

Manning went 6 for 12 as a sophomore when he led UNH with 72 points and 4 for 7 last season before being relegated to kickoffs because of a knee injury and a lack of consistency in practice.

That prompted him to tinker with his technique. A similar style worked well for Bishop last year.

"With the new technique I wasn't able to kick the ball as far as I was used to doing," Manning said. "I've always had a strong leg but I've had consistency problems. That's always been my issue. When I couldn't hit it as far, I was discouraged but I was more accurate. Once I got used to it, the power came back and I eventually had the best of both worlds."

As did UNH. He missed three of his first four attempts this year before everything came together for Manning, snapper Tom Neill, and holder Kevin Decker.

"Ever since we speeded up the time between the snap and the kick we were money," Manning said. "Once we got the timing down everything started to click. I wasn't missing. I was hitting everything in practice and getting the ball off a lot quicker than I was at the beginning of the season."

The result was 10 straight makes. Manning is 18 for 23 for the season, with all his misses coming between 40 and 49 yards.

He's perfect from inside 40 and outside 50.

"I was not expecting this good of a year," Manning said. "I was still struggling a little bit with the old technique and the transfer to the new technique took a while for it to click. Once I got the new technique down I was a lot more efficient and a lot more consistent."

There is also the mental aspect of his job.

"I'm a lot more confident," Manning added. "I very rarely miss in practice. Now I go on the field expecting to make the kick as opposed to hoping to make it."

Manning, who has kicked three field goals in a game twice this season and leads the team in scoring with 92 points, could play a key role in today's playoff game at McNeese State.

Before this season, Manning had attempted only one field goal of 50 yards or longer and it was blocked.

"Our offense gives us a lot of opportunities," Manning said. "We get in the red zone and kicking range a lot. There's that, and Coach having a lot of confidence in me."

"There's a consistency there that comes with confidence," McDonnell said. "He has an inner confidence, I believe. He knows he's good."